As Brussels hails its 2040 climate target, officials quietly admit that without a clear plan for the “leftover” emissions from farming, industry, and aviation, Europe’s promise of climate neutrality risks becoming a statistics charade.
Europe keeps spending far more on fighting wildfires than preventing them, even as fires in France, Greece and Spain show the need to shift resources toward prevention.
Europe’s heatwaves have come together with a record spike in marine temperatures, causing biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and risks of mass immigration.
From secret deportations and European-funded projects destroyed in Gaza to EU recovery funds and mining lobbying, these ten investigations expose the widening gap between Europe’s rhetoric and the realities of its policies and actions.
The EU has reached record highs in a blazing, deadly summer that’s nowhere near cooling. France and Spain are now using the EU’s solidarity mechanism to curb uncontrollable flames, and the EU plans to buy its own fleet in preparation for the crisis worsening in future.
Nearly 75 percent of the EU’s building stock is energy inefficient and most homes were never designed to cope with the increasingly hot summers Europe now faces.
Belgian minister for the climate, Jean-Luc Crucke believes in simplification and the initiative of companies to collaborate with federal sustainability measures. Despite unequal footing with international partners and a slow pace of EU reforms, the minister is “not a pessimist”
German politicians duped into thinking a new subsidy scheme only benefits Chinese electric vehiclesA previous German electric vehicle subsidy scheme massively benefited Volkswagen, which had invested heavily in expensive cars that only the rich could afford. Now it’s set to cut 100,000 jobs and close four factories in Germany.
Behind empty Strasbourg benches, a fight over whether polluting oil giants or national treasuries should pay for Europe’s €70bn-a-year adaptation is stalling any serious protection plan.
Replacing combustion engines with electric cars and switching industrial heat from fossil fuels to electricity are among the most impactful ways to decarbonise. Yet, in exactly in these areas Europe is weakening its policies.
THIS WEEK: ECB set to hike rates, as capital markets union and climate top the EU agendaThis week, the European Central Bank is expected to raise interest rates amid inflation and energy-price pressures. EU finance ministers will discuss capital markets integration and energy investment rules. The EU Commission will present the 2027 EU budget, while climate talks, transport and telecom meetings, and an EU–South Korea summit also take place.
Why blocking the sun to cool the planet is bound to go wrongReflecting the sun with tiny particles sprayed from airplanes could reduce global temperatures, but would need to be maintained for decades, perhaps centuries, and the margin of error is essentially zero.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is vital for Europe. What it would mean if it started to break down earlier than scientists expected?
A renewed push to ditch fossil fuels is long overdue, but thanks to the influence of industry lobby groups, permitting exemptions intended for renewables are being used for new dirty energy projects, such as CO2 pipelines and fossil hydrogen.
Record-breaking wildfires have already burned vast areas worldwide this year, fueled by droughts, heatwaves and climate change. Beyond destroying ecosystems and releasing massive CO2 emissions, fires threaten long-term environmental recovery. Is there a way we can adapt to this new reality?
The EU Commission also unveiled plans to subsidise up to 70 percent of the extra cost of fuel caused by the Iran war for farmers, fishers and road hauliers.
The continent of Europe is warming up two times faster than other regions in the world, with the biggest changes seen in colder regions, according to the 2025 European State of the Climate report.
The 40th anniversary of a major nuclear accident is a good opportunity to reflect on whether something similar can happen again today.
One nuclear expert told me he didn’t want to write an op-ed on the possible dangers of a meltdown of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. He then added he’d stocked up on iodine tablets.
Earth Day has been celebrated since 1970. To mark the occasion, we present 10 charts that show the current condition of humanity’s only home.